Paralyzed Emotions: Emotions, #1

By Viola Tempest

I'm trapped – a slave to a ruthless doctor, but I don't know how or why, and that's a hell I desperately want to escape.

Lie after lie. Day after day.

Something sadistic is taking place within the confines of Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital.

I must uncover the truth, but I'll need help.

Kai Hastings, a former employee of the hospital, is eager to rebel, but doing so could cost him his life… and mine, too.

Can we expose the truth about what goes on behind locked doors?

Before those behind the evil acts, and the spirit who haunts me, destroy me?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Viola Tempest Publishing
• Release date: Oct 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781952716638

Viola Tempest

Viola Tempest is a dystopian fantasy and paranormal romance author who yearns to expose the truth of those in the modern world: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Her inspiration primarily stems from life experiences, those who annoy her, ex-boyfriends, and the crazy dreams that pop into her head every once in a while.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Hi, my name is Constance Fay. Two years ago, I was captured and forced into Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital against my will. But I was made to believe it had been my choice.

Here is my story.

The thing about Bellevue, is that nothing is what it seems, at least, not on the inside.

I was admitted into the hospital for one reason, but soon enough, I started doubting what that reason had been. I was fed lies and was left broken and confused. My skin was violated against my will, and the feeling of needles piercing through me continue to haunt me to this day.

I was used like a lab rat, abused, lied to, and it felt like torture, even worse than any nightmare I ever had. I used to feel so much that, at times, I wouldn’t even be able to think straight, and nightmares would cloud my judgement. Pills after pills were fed into my system, and I didn’t even know what I was taking. I felt afraid most of the time, and darkness took over constantly. I didn’t know what was real and what was a nightmare.

Maybe it was all a nightmare.

I did meet someone, though. Someone who would change everything, someone who taught me how to laugh again, and reminded me what it was like to be alive. We spent our days together, helping each other heal and remember. Trying to figure out what was real and what was not, sifting together through our memories to try and figure out the truth. The truth about ourselves. The truths about the hospital and it’s director, Dr. Theodore Faulkner.

Our torturer.

But all that is forgotten now. Thinking about it is almost like looking at a movie through a dirty glass. I can remember everything that happened. I remember the stingy pain of needles being plunged into my skin, the black ink spilling down the walls, the nightmares, the pills being shoved down my throat. I remember the last time I saw him. The last time I saw Kai. I remember blood, so much blood. But the dread is gone.

When I think about it, about every single memory of my time at the hospital and what came after, the drama that came before and led me there… I feel nothing. I’m happy.

So stupidly, irrationally happy. Everything’s fine. So, I look back in my journals, endless documents of those days. On all the pain and dread. I let it all sink in; I let it get into my skin. But it doesn’t. I’m happy, so I place my father’s gun against my forehead while I read.

Everything’s fine. Just fine. Perfectly fine.

CHAPTER

ONE

The night was dark; the crows were cawing in the far distance. A quiet whimpering disturbed the eerie silence that fell heavy on the bleak and solitary hospital room inside the adult ward of Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital. Inside, lied a young woman, me, my appearance sickly thin and pale. My frail body was curled up on a small metal bed frame, my breaths flowing heavily from my mouth.

I didn’t know what was going on, or why I was so frightened, but my mind was stuck in an empty dream, floating in a pool of black, aimlessly. It was a thick black oozing liquid that took over everything. A heavy darkness that surrounded me, pressing into my body, stealing the air out of my lungs. And inside that darkness, a pair of glowing yellow eyes watched me. Waiting, watching, piercing me.

Needles were stuck into my arms, stabbing me over and over. A knife, a small bottle of pills, a bottle of something else. A blanket, restrained in my arms, screaming. So much screaming. The beeping of machines all around me, a sterile and eerie room, the walls black with the oozing liquid, but that seemed wrong. They should be white. There should be lights shining into my eyes.

And suddenly, a casual smile tried to get to me through all the darkness, a sincere piece of happiness ripping through the blackness with teeth and nails, but the black mass took it, ate it. It took him, and I was left alone once more. Alone in the emptiness of it all.

However, it wasn’t the darkness and the shadows that left me whimpering in fear for hours on end; I was used to all that. They usually went away when I wrapped the security blanket I had kept since childhood around me, keeping me safe.

No, it was what lurked beyond the darkness that kept my sweat and tears pouring, draining my essence until I became the void that lurked around me. Every emotion that I couldn’t feel bombarded me, and no matter how hard I screamed, it all just wouldn’t stop. I desperately wanted to be free from it all. I was willing to try anything.

I continued to toss and turn, my blanket falling over onto the cold cement floor. I then shivered from the sudden chill blowing into my room. The shiver quickly turned into violent shakes, forcing me awake. Three in the morning was never the best time for me. What was I even doing? I didn’t belong here.

I tried to keep myself warm, wrapping my slender arms around my emaciated body. I sat up and felt my oversized white jacket slipping off one side of my shoulder. As I scanned the room for anything unfamiliar, my heart began to beat quicker in my chest.

However, as expected, there wasn’t much to be seen. Nothing but a chair and a doorless closet, filled with the same monochrome colored clothing I had been wearing for the past several months. Hell, this cell of a room barely had a window to shine the moonlight in, only a thin sliver of glass pressed against the thick walls. And the light above me? Nothing but dimness as it flicked on once every twelve hours. Sometimes I wondered if a prison cell would’ve been more spacious.

My head was pounding, and my bladder felt ready to explode. Walking over to the bathroom every night proved to be a nightmare. None of the inmates, I mean patients, were allowed the privilege of their own private bathrooms, forcing us to travel down several halls just to empty ourselves out. But making that trek during the nighttime proved to be much worse than during the day. When the lights were out, the crazies came out too, turning my trip to the bathroom into a nightmare on death row.

As I stood up from my bed, my legs almost crumbled beneath the weight of my body. The room spun like crazy around me as I tried to steady myself from falling by grasping onto the metal post. Even in motion, the chill continued to pierce against me. Why won’t it leave me alone? I turned toward the sliver of the window and hissed as the cold bit into my skin. I tugged at the jacket, pulling it over my shoulders again, just to watch it slip off.

God damn.

My stomach twisted and turned as I proceeded toward the wooden door. However, the pain was so unbearable, like sharp knives stabbing into my wounds. I doubled over with a groan, trying not to throw up, blood or bile, God only knew what. It felt like days since I last ate anything; not like anything was going to come up, anyway.

I picked myself up, but time after time when I tried to stand up, my stomach cramped, causing even more pain than before. I tried taking a few deep breaths again, hoping that the pain was just due to nerves.

After a few deep breaths slowly through my nostrils, and trying not to focus on the agonizing pain, I finally straightened my body up, ready to try again. I took no more than two steps before the pain forced me to hunch over yet again as I tumbled down and dragged my feet across the cold flood. It felt like I hadn’t moved in months, my joints and muscles so weak I didn’t even know how I was still standing.

Several agonizing moments later, I finally reached the wooden door and pressed my forehead up against it, letting out a loud groan. My body was still shivering. I couldn’t understand why everything was so fucking cold. For a moment, I thought about crawling back over to the metal frame and grabbing my blanket off the ground, but I knew I didn’t have the strength to make it. The added weight would just hold me in my place.

Reaching my right hand up along the door, I frantically searched along the board for a handle. No luck. Nothing but splinters and glass. After several more tries, I gave up and slid back away from the door, staring at the object with my own eyes. No wonder I couldn’t find a handle; there was no handle to grab onto, nothing resembling an actual door other than the few hinges along the side of the frame. I remembered a handle; why wasn’t it there?

Hello? I called out hesitantly, hitting my hand against the door with every ounce of energy I could muster up.

The sound of my palm slapping against the metal echoed through the room, and an unbearable ringing started in my ears. I squeezed my eyes shut, focusing on anything but the pain, and continued knocking with the little strength I had left.

Then I saw it, a shadow, the creepy shadow in my dreams. I shifted my body back in tension and fear. I heard scraping against the other side of the door, a panel sliding over to the left before bright yellow eyes came into my vision. My eyes burned from the intensity of the creature’s eyes, and I flinched back even more, stumbling over the jacket that had completely fallen off my shoulders.

Hello? I asked again but with little confidence.

Despite the haunting